Few celebrity moments this fall have hit the nostalgia button quite like Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato’s Rare Beauty campaign. The two former Disney Channel stars, who have been publicly distant for years, teamed up for Gomez’s beauty brand in late October and sent fans straight back to 2009. Now a new Page Six report published November 8 is asking the question everyone online has been asking: are they actually best friends again?

Here is a clear look at what has been confirmed, what is coming from anonymous sources, and why the campaign landed the way it did.

What the campaign actually was

The collaboration went live on Rare Beauty’s channels on October 28. In it, Gomez and Lovato recreated the poster for their 2009 Disney Channel movie “Princess Protection Program” and revived the playful webcam-style vlogs they used to post together on YouTube when they were teenagers.

The tagline was “Best friends that are still making each other blush,” a nod to Rare Beauty’s blush products. For fans who grew up with those grainy videos, seeing the pair side by side again was a genuine surprise.

The numbers behind the buzz

The best-documented fact comes from inside the company. Tyra Booker, Rare Beauty’s assistant vice president of integrated marketing, wrote on LinkedIn that the campaign passed “500M+ views across every platform” and called it “more than a beauty campaign but a cultural moment.”

Booker also shared that she pitched the concept during her first week at the company, inspired by the Disney-era friendship she watched growing up. In other words, the reunion idea came from the brand’s marketing team, not from the two stars themselves.

The friendship question

This is where things get murkier. Page Six quotes an unnamed source who says the two “are not best friends” and “will never be as close as they once were,” while adding that they have “patched things up enough to be in a better place.” That is a single anonymous source, so it is worth treating with caution.

What is on the public record is the history. Gomez and Lovato first met as young children on “Barney & Friends” and grew close during their Disney years. Their friendship cooled over much of the following decade, and by 2020 Lovato said publicly that they were no longer friends, while adding she would always have love for Gomez. Page Six notes neither attended the other’s wedding in 2025.

There have been signs of thawing, though. Gomez went to the opening night of Lovato’s tour in Orlando this past April, and the two were photographed backstage. Lovato later told Elle that she was happy they had reached a place where they could collaborate and reconnect.

Why it worked so well

Brand partnerships come and go, but this one struck a nerve for a few reasons:

  • Nostalgia with a real backstory. Fans remember the friendship and the falling-out, so the reunion felt like a storyline, not just an ad.
  • It leaned into the internet’s own history. Recreating low-fi webcam vlogs is a format fans already loved and shared years ago.
  • It left room for speculation. Every “are they friends again?” post added more views.

What it means for Rare Beauty

For Gomez’s brand, the campaign is a reminder that emotion and shared memory can travel further than a product demo. It also shows how a well-timed celebrity pairing can get people talking about a brand far outside the usual beauty audience.

The takeaway

The safest reading is the simplest one. Gomez and Lovato were willing to work together, the campaign was a marketer’s idea, and it was a huge hit. Whether they are back to being inseparable is a question only the two of them can answer, and so far neither has said they are. For fans, a friendly reunion on screen may be enough.

Image: DifferentColorsOfLipsticks by Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine via Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0